There I slept through my own thin night. Some operatives could surrender themselves happily to oblivion, trusting their hard-wiring to banish the shadows when the crisis had passed, then returning exhilarated to life and light, grinning secretly or howling like shamen. I am afraid of the dark. Not the mere dimming of light when the sun goes down or screens go opaque, but the utter absence of sensation and energy, the brute silence of the void. I use more oxygen than I should clutching the image of a strand of burning silver. It is the fire seared by a low sun across a horizon choked with sea-ice. Matter is energy and energy matter. Where there is light to be warmed by, there is rock to stand on and a universe to exist in. I can illuminate the infinite absence and define it. A nonsense mantra, of course, but a good comfort blanket.

Then I returned. Two hours had passed in seconds. Something prevented me opening my mouth to yawn and I remembered the fifty feet of salt water above my head. The day was dissolving, the surface of the water blushing with the sun's last efforts, the blackness of the deep rising to embrace the night. Warning signals competed for my attention. My medical suite had all but repaired my skin but, like a good physician, reminded me I needed to eat and drink and get plenty of rest. It wasn't able to suggest a convenient hotel or spa in keeping with my usual style. A new crop of stubble was already replacing the incinerated hair roots on my scalp.

I allowed myself to feel in the raw. My skin throbbed with heat and fitted tightly at the joints. I supposed sunburn felt like that. A body's worth of seared dermis was detaching itself in sheets with no more resistance than shrinkwrap to be fussed over by fish. I tore at my chrysalis with fingers and nails, discovering smooth, healthy skin beneath.

Then another warning signal, a jab of adrenaline, and I chose to feel rather than see the invisible shape approaching. The darting movements of the scavenging shoal felt like a gentle rain. The thing closing on me brought a pressure to bear on my torso, squeezing my lungs, increaing smoothly and relentlessly; it was bigger than me, faster then me and knew exactly where I was.